SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, TENTATIVELY! ©

We, Americans, speak of loving our troops, supporting our soldiers and yet we demonstrate this in the oddest of ways. Recently, on April 1, 2005, I was listening to what I wish were an April “Fool’s Day” ruse. Sadly, it was not. I was tuned into On the Media, a National Public Radio program. The topic was “Wounded in Abstraction.” Radio host Brook Gladstone was interviewing Salon correspondent, Mark Benjamin. Mr. Benjamin has been covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has followed the injured soldiers, listened to their stories, and observed their stresses.

He has written much on the subject. During this discourse, he spoke of the Pentagon, its practices, policies, and the manner in which it calculates war casualties. He offered that the numbers are “deceptively low” and he explained why this is.

Reporter Benjamin shared that the Pentagon selectively defines the term “casualties.” Casualties are only persons that are “hurt directly by the bullets and the bombs of the enemy.” If an ally wounds a soldier, if s/he is injured in an automobile accident, if a combatant commits suicide, or is s/he is impaired accidentally, then s/he is not considered a casualty of war.

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